Why doesn't Viking publish the rest of them?

That the "Penguin Proust" translations aren't all available in
the United States is thanks to the manic American copyright law,
as mucked up by Sonny Bono at the behest of the Walt Disney
Studios. For fear that Disney's odious mouse would fall into the
public domain, the term of copyright was extended in a way that
would keep Mickey the property of the company for the foreseeable
future. Naturally, this had consequences undreamed-of by the
singer turned California congressman.

Bono's legislation effectively froze the date at which works
go into the public domain at 1923, instead of marching forward
twelve months with each passing year. In Search of Lost
Time was caught in this web, because only the first four
volumes were published before 1923. The Prisoner, The
Fugitive, and Finding Time Again are still protected
under U.S. copyright law, so Viking can't yet publish them, even
though the British paperbacks are freely imported into this
country. (Similarly, the Scott Moncrieff translations aren't available
on the U.S. website of the Gutenberg Project: you must go to the
University of Adelaide in Australia to download them. Remember when
America called itself the Land of the Free? The title has now moved
Down Under!)

Of course, Viking could have contacted all of Proust's likely
heirs, but its legal department probably advised against taking
this step on the grounds that someone might be missed, only to
turn up later accompanied by a lawyer. Or perhaps the cost was
simply thought prohibitive — what if the final heir held out for
millions of dollars? In any event, Viking decided to wait until
2018, when the U.S. copyright on The Prisoner will finally
expire, 95 years after publication. It remains to be seen whether the
company will still be interested the project at that time.

The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 is variously known as
the Sony Bono Act and the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Under
whatever name, it was certainly a Mickey Mouse piece of
legislation.

(Yale University Press seems to be neatly side-stepping this problem
with its new version of the Scott Moncrieff translation. At the rate
of a volume a year, The Prisoner will presumably be published in
2018, ninety-five years after it appeared in French. Strict adherence to
the Bono foolishness would mean that we see Mr Carter's The Fugitive
in 2020 and Finding Time Again in 2022.... Or perhaps, given that
Yale University Press claims that this is only a freshening of the
already existing Scott Moncrieff translation, it has decided to ignore
Mr Bono altogether.)